Building the Factories of The Future, Will Drewery of Diagon

Hello and welcome to NextGen Industrialists, a Katalyst Point podcast. In this episode, we’re thrilled to host Will Drewery, Founder and CEO of Diagon, a trailblazing capital equipment procurement enterprise-grade platform. Will brings his extensive experience and subject matter expertise from his pivotal roles at PwC, Tesla, Astra, and Bright Machines to discuss his criteria for factories of the future.

What to Expect:

* Will’s journey growing up in the steel-producing communities of Pittsburg to consulting on global reindustrialization projects in Iraq as a PwC consultant and being Tesla's first CapEx equipment buyer

* Insights on managing a $4 billion capital equipment procurement budget

* Why industrial transformation works using first principles thinking

* The journey behind Diagon’s $5M seed round

* Will's criteria for factories of the future

0:00:00 Introduction

0:01:55 Will's Early Life and Upbringing in Pittsburgh

0:06:33 Transition to Consulting and Work with Government Agencies

0:09:51 Impact of Reindustrialization in Iraq and Personal Reflection

0:15:32 Transition from Business School to Silicon Valley

0:17:13 Introduction to Tesla and Will’s Role in Driving Change

0:25:16 First Principles Thinking: Model S → Model X → Model 3

0:38:10 The Sticky Procurement Problem Diagon is Solving

0:40:25 Challenges in Capital Equipment Procurement

0:45:54 Launching Diagon and the Inspiration Behind the Name

0:48:17 Comparison with ERP Systems of Record vs. Systems of Work

0:52:24 Formation of the Diagon Founding Team

0:55:16 Signal vs. Noise in Validating A Minimum Viable Product

0:59:18 The Importance of Paying Customers vs. The MVP

1:02:06 Mitigating VC Investor Concerns

1:05:38 Diagon's Fundraising Journey Took 150 Calls

1:06:41 Diagon’s Ideal Customer Profile

1:08:00 Will's Criteria for Factories of the Future

1:16:59 Companies That Are Building Factories of the Future Today

1:20:00 How SMEs Can Innovate their CapEx Procurement Process

Diagon website

Katalyst Point website